CBI’s mosque attack case also cold

Police allege that CBI has neither made any arrests nor filed any chargesheet in the Mecca Masjid blast case in Hyderabad, reports Ashok Das.

>While the reputation of the city police is in tatters in the wake of three terrorist strikes in three months, killing a total of 56 people, the Central Bureau of Investigation has proved to be no better.

The CBI was handed the Mecca Masjid blast case back in May but it remains unsolved. “The CBI has neither made any arrests nor filed any chargesheet. The case seems to have reached a dead end,” said a police official.

State officials say that had the CBI cracked the case and arrested the culprits, the recent twin blasts could have been prevented. They feel the failure of government agencies in tracking down the perpetrators of the Mecca Masjid blast, or of earlier incidents, could have emboldened the same terrorist group or another outfit to launch the recent attacks.

Though the state police wanted to handle the Masjid blast case, the state government handed it over to the CBI in the wake of demands from several Muslim organisations and political parties, who felt the police might not be fair and a CBI probe would be better. That was because of the 14 people who died, as many as seven were killed in police firing following the blast.

Now, the same groups and parties are bitter that the CBI has done little to live up to public expectation.

Teams of CBI sleuths visited the Mecca Masjid and questioned a number people. Forensic experts from Delhi collected samples from the blast site, in addition to examining the material and other evidence collected by the local police. Police Commissioner Balwinder Singh went on record that the case would be cracked in a week's time.

An interesting fact is that while handing over the Mecca Masjid case to CBI, the police did not pass on the unexploded bomb seized from the blast site. That and the case relating to it remained with the police. Now, as an afterthought, probably caused by the recent blasts, the police have decided to hand the evidence over to the central investigating agency.

Official circles said the government would soon be writing to the CBI, asking it to expedite its investigation.